The present invention relates to a vehicular shift device, more particularly to a shift-by-wire type shift device.
In a typical automobile having an automatic transmission, the shift lever of the transmission is manipulated to change the shift position. The shift lever protrudes into the passenger compartment and uses leverage for transmitting a predetermined amount of force.
A typical shift lever locking mechanism locks a shift lever at the parking position and does not permit the shift lever to be moved to another position unless the driver performs another operation such as pressing of the brake pedal. For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 10-59132 discloses such a shift lever device. The shift lever of the device is reciprocated in a linear shift gate. One end of the gate is the parking position. When the shift lever is located at the parking position, an engaging projection formed on the shift lever engages with a lock pin, which is driven by an actuator. The engagement prevents the shift lever from being moved from the parking position.
Shift-by-wire type shift devices have also been applied in the field. A shift-by-wire type shift device converts a shifting operation of a shift lever into an electric shifting signal and operates an actuator with the signal. The actuator, in turn, switches a manual shift valve. However, since the shift lever projects into the passenger compartment, the lever may be unintentionally manipulated.